Warwick_Tech

The M4300 48 port core - 24 ports of 10GB SFP+ and 24 10GBP copper ports in a 1U case; I even have a spare in the cupboard for hotswaps

Hi All, So I have this months task list in front of me and I'm thinking how best to go about it - Email signature standardisation - * SLT would like to standardise the signatures, great idea, but the default signature generator is mail flow rules and only appends this to the end of the email, not where a signature would usually be and doesn't apply each time, making it look a bit unprofessional. Those who do this - How do you do it? I was thinking a third party company could help, but I'm unsure where to start on who to trust so any recommendations would be appreciated. I wondered if I could push out a PS script to apply them all per user (?) but then how could I personalise them with job title etc.? Email auto replies for outside agencies (staff) * SLT would like to have an 'auto-reply' turned on for all staff that replies with a generic 'Thanks for your email, please be patient etc. etc.' but I can't find an easy way of doing this through mail flow, again a third party operator recommendation would be great; or a legit reason why this is a dumb idea (they didn't think 'crashing the internet' was a valid reason lol) Again, a PowerShell script to set an OOO per user is possible (?)

Hey All, Thought a 'heads together' approach would help here - We have a range of PC's that use a VM for Computing so they can 'hack' windows and run wild with code, problem is they keep freezing (apparently, I've never seen it happen) The host PC's are way overpowered and the same VM was created on my machine with a decent spec and never fails to crash for me, but when we push them out to the hosts apparently they do - Now I'm not convinced it's not the students own code that causes the crash (my argument ATM is if they're crashing the VM's it's a good thing it's not the host) but that's running thin. Does anyone who uses VirtualBox or similar VM solution have any ideas? I've re-built the VM's several times from scratch and given them plenty of spec, but VirtualBox doesn't seem to have log files, and if they do the kids have already long left before I get there to check....

challenge

We are running 23.2.4.2338 without issue, I think this is the latest (?)

Hi All, Hopefully an easy one - We use WUFB to manage our updates and currently the policy is defined between 'staff' and 'student' machines so we can control the versions granularly per group. If we wanted to get even more granular and apply these per room, but still keep the overall 'main' policy, which would take precedence? https://serverfault.com/questions/521180/what-takes-precedence-when-multiple-conflicting-gpos-apply-to-the-same-ou So say in this scenario we wanted 'Art' to have 24H2, would the system respect 22H2 from the 'Student PC' container and then apply 24H2 to the Art container? Or would the top GPO override the 'lower' container? I think this would work, but wanted to see if I'm overthinking things!

Interesting, do you have a link to an article/legislation? I have some people that would be very interested to see this in writing

Hi All, I thought I'd start a new thread to discuss Computer Science and its minefield of legislation - I'm finding it difficult to navigate through what is/isn't required and how best to allow the code safely; so, for example in its base version; 'Python' * Should this be run isolated or just installed natively * Should students have access to install new modules (pygame etc) * How do you mitigate the risks of students running code/programs on your network (please don't discuss the overall security of a network, this is irrelevant to the question) I've always been a fan of sites like Replit.com where they can code online, but I'm being told these are 'restrictive' and 'distracting' (I know these are individual issues, but must be given merit for the sake of this discussion) and I'm also a big fan of providing Rpi5 units to each student so they can essentially be the Admin of their own device; but this comes with KCSIE risks (e.g. providing a school device that must be secure) and the added complication of throwing in a Linux based OS when they are taught on Windows I've dabbled with VM machines running fat python on an unrestricted OS so we could also teach 'ethical hacking' but despite them working there are complaints of crashes, freezes and unsuitability with the curriculum. How does everyone else deal with this minefield? We need a sensible balance of getting the best for students, but also following the layers of legislation based around this curriculum.

So, we've turned off self app registration for obvious reasons and have been trundling along with an 'all or nothing' approach where we just grant Admin consent for whole school. This has been working a treat, but realistically we need to start granularly dropping back these permissions as more and more apps get added, some only for staff, some only for students etc. The issue is, I can only really get SSO to work if 'global admin' consent is enabled, otherwise any non admins cannot login, even if assigned the app in 'users and groups' To make things stranger, even options like 'hide this app' don't seem to work as they can still see all the icons on their office waffle. Does anyone have any good steps or best practice to tidy this up?

I found that yes, call a batch command to a central installer, then you can customise as you wish, so the Sophos one for example is: The deployment will popup a CMD window with the old 'Jurassic Park' blinking cursor, but will continue once the script finishes.

Hi All, We have had a request comes through for students to use GODOT https://godotengine.org/ Looks like a great engine, and can be run from a network share so that's a plus - However it does raise some questions. * Users can download other users projects, even anonymous ones from the internet (safeguarding) * Users could gain access to internal systems through scripting, but I'm unsure of if/how/why OS access would be required (anyone have any examples?) * Users can setup LAN games (as above) * Users can play games anytime they want without internet access (classroom control issue) Can anyone think of anything I've missed? Anyone with a knowledge of if/how you can access internal systems would be appreciated (similar to pythons OS commands) I'm happy to let this go but would like some more feedback on potential issues.

When you run the tasks have you saved the global admin credentials? - Make sure 'load users profile' is also ticked

Ha - knew it was too good to be true, updated the ADK, WinPE and MDT only to discover it froze on load (PXE); then found out it was because I has an older version of VirtualBox THEN I'm getting errors on 'install operating system' for 24H2 - Although I'm more inclined to believe that's virtualbox again.... Edit: Yes, it was virtualbox not mounting the disk drive correctly

Bit the bullet and updated the Deployment server - seems suspiciously happy so far....

Hi All, While we are all discussing start menus we have an odd glitch - We use the 'start2.bin' method copied across via GPO to 'default users' but when logged in as local admin, it works fine with the Office icons; But then as a domain user the icons are missing This only seems to happen for office - anyone got any ideas? The icons are in the 'all apps' section, just not the main window...

Ok, so several months later when I've had time to play - Yes, this does work on W11 (woohoo) Also found a great blogpost for each off the set https://www.paperstreetonline.com/server-2012windows-8-ribbon-ui-disable-icons-shortcuts-tasks-and-commands/

Looks like Croot has the basics of this question down. But yes, you don't want guest devices to ever touch your main DHCP, this is for your devices only so you can control HTTPS inspection certification etc. We don't have HTTPS decrypt and inspect on the guest WIFI as not everyone or every device can install the certificates; however, it's still all filtered through the main Firewall. The way we have DHCP configured is we have our main DHCP, but the firewall can also have DHCP connection, so we have a range for staff, a range for guests, a range for students and a range for 6th form - We use Unifi switching and AP's so it's really easy to setup a new SSID, assign it a VLAN, configure the rules and it all directs back to the firewall giving secure access, complaint with KCSIE without compromising the central network. Feel free to throw out any more questions.

Nothing over £250 I would say, it only needs to be better than the built in speakers and provide some bass; they're for MFL speaking and listening so it's easier to hear speech inflections.

Hi All, I'm struggling to find a decent soundbar that can connect via USB (but can be 3.5mm) that's wall mountable; the kicker is it can't have BT, or at least be able to disable it with a physical switch. Anyone got any ideas?

I had a similar issue, used this code from a web forum; use at your own risk o/c

Hi All, Am I going crazy here - My IT lead has said they don't want to use Python Online anymore (https://www.online-python.com/) because, and I quote - "The line when it asks for an input is on a new line and not next to the question" For a visual example, run the same code here; https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/online-compiler/ and it is on the same line. How do I even begin to explain this is just preference, the same as the different colours each IDLE uses?

Thanks everyone for the replies - I don't have that one set it seems, but as Olliedawg says it does turn off many useful ones too... Not sure how you even do this! Does this break anything else? I can only imagine they need the windows key for locking (disallowed) changing display modes (they only have one screen) - Any others I'm missing?

https://www.pugetsystems.com/support/guides/how-ctrlwinshiftb-changed-my-life/ So, it's now spreading around that the above command causes the screen to 'glitch' and of course if you spam it will continue to 'glitch' enough for a teacher to walk over and phone IT that the PC's are broken (hilarious) I really can't find any way to block this though; it seems to be hard coded into windows and weirdly works with the letter 'L' as well which takes you to LinkedIn. Sometimes I wonder if the kids spent as much effort on their work, they might make something of themselves....

Hi Seb, It's both easy and difficult to use Nova as a standalone, you can grab the files (and the licence) from a valid SIMS install and install this anywhere; but it comes with certain restrictions - Most notably the version number will be updated each time a big SIMS patch is run, so timetables created on each satellite will be incompatible with each other on a different version number, as well as being imported back to SIMS. You also need to consider backups as the generated timetable files need to be accessible to everyone who does timetabling and backed up securely. I know you can import Nova files into Bromcom directly, but don't know about Arbor.

That was an experience as I remember.... +1 For Sophos; if you don't want to use LGFL, try Chess CyberSecurity